Free Dracula Unbound by Brian W. Aldiss Page A

prisoner was living still. Dull though his eyes were, he made a stir, the fangs in the flattened mouth clicked as if ravenous against their containing bar, the limbs trembled, one edematous foot twitched.
    Clift started to retch.
    â€œLet’s get out of here,” he said. “We should never have come.”
    Bodenland would say nothing. They edged round the table. The fish gaze of the victim on the table followed them, eyeballs palely bulging.
    Twisting an unfamiliar type of latch on the door, they moved out into a corridor. Bodenland covered his eyes and face with a broad hand.
    â€œI’m sorry I got you into this, Bernie.”
    The corridor was even darker than the torture compartment. No sense of movement reached them as they progressed down it, though every now and again it swerved, challenging their balance, as if it was rounding a bend at speed.
    No windows gave on the outside world. At intervals, glass doors led to compartments set on the left of the corridor. Inside these compartments, dark and dreary, sat immobile figures, their bodies half embedded in molded seating. The whole ambience was of something antique and underground, such as a long-forgotten Egyptian tomb, in which the spirits of the dead were confined. The moldings of the heavy wooden doors, the elaborate paneling, all suggested another age—yet the tenebrous scene was interspersed by tiny glitters at every doorway, where a panel of indicators kept up a code of information.
    The men moved down the corridor and came to an unoccupied compartment, into which they hastened with some relief. They shut themselves in but could find no lock for the door.
    â€œWe didn’t come armed,” Bodenland said with regret.
    When their eyes had adjusted to the dimness, they saw plush mummy-shaped recesses in which to sit. Once seated, they had in front of them a control touch-panel—electronic but clearly of another age, made from a material fatty in appearance. Bodenland started to fiddle with the controls.
    â€œJoe—suppose you summon someone …”
    â€œWe can’t just sit around like passengers.”
    He began to stab systematically with his middle finger.
    A lid shot up like an eyelid on the wall facing them, and a VDU lit. Colors flowed hectically, then a male face snapped into view, a heavy aquiline face that looked as if it had been kept in deep freeze. Seeming to press its nose against the glass screen, it opened its mouth and said, “Agents of Group Sixteen, prepare to leave for—. Agents of Group Sixteen.”
    â€œWhere did he say?” asked Clift.
    â€œNever heard of the place. How come we can’t see through this window?” Bodenland ran his hand over a series of pressure plates. The window on his left turned transparent. It was barred, but permitted a distorted view of the outside world in tones of gray. With this view, a sense of movement returned; they could see what looked like uncultivated prairie flashing by.
    And at the same time, phantasmal figures, looking much attenuated, drifted from the train to land on a grass mound they were passing.
    â€œThere go the agents of Group Sixteen,” commented Bodenland. “Whoever the hell they are.”
    The train then appeared to gather speed.
    More investigation of the control panel brought forth from its socket a small terrestrial globe. A thread-thin trace light revealed what they could only believe was their course, heading northwest. But the continents were subtly changed. Florida had extended itself to enclose the Caribbean. Hudson Bay did not exist. Indications were that the train was now crossing what should have been the waters of Hudson Bay; all that could be seen were forests and undulating savannah lands.
    Numerals flashed across the VDU. Clift pointed to them with some excitement. He seemed to have recovered from his shock of fear.
    â€œRead those figures, Joe. They could be in millions B . P . They aren’t speeds or